The Keepers (or The Momentum).

by Thabang Seepe

  Chapter 6: The death.

  For weeks he stayed so. Like an animal. Locked up in his apartment, first eating all the food he had, then starving himself by not going out and buying anything and when he wanted to go, he went in his pants. And he vomited daily and those white pants and black shirt, were the clothes he had changed into after the first time he had soiled himself. But now, the white pants were brown with touches of yellow and the black shirt was like a black canvas with a rainbow painted on it and he could feel his excrements eating him. He was horrible.

  A banging of the drums. In the jungle, Africa. In Iceland, in London the Big Ben. Loud, banging. Hard. Bang! Bang! Bang! Loud, very loud. Boom. The sound of a gun. Rikki, them damned panks are shooting. Bang. In my heart. Bang in my head. Bang, my leg blown off, my head, my arms. Bang. Bang. Bang. Breathe. BREATHE! No banging. BREATHE!

  “Rikki, go get the door,” his mother said.

  “Dammit boy, get the door,” some man he had never seen before said.

  “Wake up bro. Get the door,” Jared said.

  Jared...Jared where are you? They are shooting. They’re shooting. Dammit, I’m safe here. I’m fine here. I deserve this. F**k!

  “Are you are awake?” The Voice asked.

  What do you want? Somehow the sound of The Voice soothed his panic.

  “Someone is at your door, Rikki.”

  Tell them to go away.

  “Go away,” Rikki said, shouting. Not The Voice.

  “I said go f**king away. Dammit.” He shouted again, and stood from the white bedspread spoiled brownish. Pulling his pants up to his waist, he tried to make his way to the door. The floor was littered. Plastic wrappers, cups, plates, broken glass, scratched walls, blood stained walls, soiled carpet. It was a pigsty.

  “Yes Mr. Chards. I have heard your voice and confirmed, well I assume that everything is alright and I shall leave you.” The duty manager smelled the foul odour he was told about through the whole corridor.

  It was the duty manager. It’s just the duty manager, he said to The Voice.

  “But one more thing” the duty manager resumed after a moment. “We – no – I have had several complaints about peculiar noises coming from this room by your neighbours, Mr. Chards, such as screams and loud knockings against the walls or whatever.” He paused and thought of how he would say the next part.

  “I have also had complains about a foul odour emanating from your room, Mr. Chards. I hope everything is alright,” He continued hesitatingly and-

  “Go away. I paid for the whole year. And I can do whatever I want. Go,” Rikki said.

  “I shall check again in three days.”

  Who talks like this? Like he has something stuck up his ass.

  “Rikki, boy, it is the civilised sort that speak such,” The Voice replied.

  The duty manager’s footsteps were audible as he headed towards the elevator, as well as the ping sound the elevator made when it opened.

  The elevator to heaven. That’s it! He shouted in his mind and that was it.

  ”I am not god!” He shouted and shouted again several times and after all that needed to be shouted, The Voice said “Rikki, you need a god and the first step is to get yourself a bible. In your case any bible will do.”

  He considered and a light turned on in his soul.

  “Yes. Yes. Yes.” he said relieved by the discovery of the solution.

  -

  The bible. The only thing that was inspirational enough to have him get out of his filthy bed, have him wash, have him cleaned up, and dressed up. The bright yellow shirt did not at all match his bright purple skinny short pants. His dreadlocks were braided and dyed green casting such a contrast to his gold coloured sunglasses which were set on his head and tinted yellow. His black high tops were made even longer by his black socks reaching up to the knees.

  “You want to dress like that? Anyway I doubt anyone will recognize you. You look so different- not in the better way.”

  He ignored The Voice. I have seen a book-store down the road. They might have bibles. We’ll buy one. All this talk about the bible gave him more and more inspiration to continue his pathetic existence.

  Then I don’t have to be guilty. I read the bible. Everyone says god forgives. How many gods are there? Voice, which bible.

  “They all carry the same idea really.” The Voice replied. Faking enthusiasm in order to meet Rikki’s.

  -

  “I knows there’s sum-one in der, I saw you with them bags, quit trippin man,” he said aggressively as he knocked on the wooden door of the book-store. He had seen Lysei enter the book-store carrying plastic bags.

  Lysei came and opened the door and let him in.

  -

  Did you see that bitch, he asked The Voice.

  They was f**kin. I smelled pussy.

  The Voice did not reply but rather thought about how doomed Rikki was. His enthusiasm was revealing the true Rikki; the perverted, arrogant, selfish Rikki. Sure he was trying but his self-destructiveness was going to kill him. The bible was simply a way of passing him on peacefully. His badness was going to kill him. He would never change and within him there was a goodness and with that goodness knowing that he would not change but continue to live an empty existence the moment he became better, the goodness would use regret, sorrow and guilt to lead him on to suicide. He would first have to die in the mind so that he could kill himself in the flesh. He would die for the greater good.

  Good bye Rikki. The Voice said as he entered his apartment and it was the last time he heard It. He was alone now. Reading the bible, trying to get back on top so he could again laugh at everyone else.

  Three days later. The duty manager knocked, knocked some more, called out Mr. Chards, shouted Mr. Chards but there was no reply. He thought that maybe Rikki went out and thought about how that would be better because what he had really come for was to enter the apartment for inspection. Using his duty manager magnetic strip card he opened the door. The noise had gone down, but there were complaints of a foul odour different to the one before and he smelled it now, very different from the one he smelled three days ago. Like a dead cat, he thought. He entered and found the room clean, neat, shockingly clean and neat. With the sliding door opened to the balcony. But the smell was more horrible inside and as he turned left towards the bedroom, he saw an outstretched, motionless hand through the half opened door. He slowly and carefully, as if walking on glass or on ice, went toward the bedroom and the closer he got the more apparent the paleness of the hand, and the more closer he got, the more apparent the ants and maggots became and the more amplified the smell was and with his right hand he covered his mouth and nose. He reached out a hand and pushed further the half opened door and he saw the other hand, the wrist with a razor blade stuck in it, he saw the carpet around the body covered in dried blood, then unconsciously he looked at the eyes being eaten by the maggots and ants. Vomit escaped through the spaces between his fingers and he tried to keep the rest in as he ran outside the room screaming “Help! Help! Help!”. Rikki’s self-destruction was complete.